From 30 April 2016, Europe has been subject to net neutrality rules set out in the Connected Continent Regulation. However those rules, set out in Articles 3 and 4 of the Regulation and reproduced below for easy reference, are framed at such a high level of abstraction as to be almost useless in assessing whether any particular practice is compliant or not.

As discussed previously, perhaps one of the most important pieces of legislation for the telecoms sector proposed in the recent Queen’s speech is reform of the Electronic Communications Code, which deals with the telecoms industry’s access to land in the UK.

In a consultation published earlier this week, Singapore’s Info-Communications Development Agency (or IDA) published a consultation on auctioning and reserving spectrum in Singapore for 4G (LTE or WiMAX) use in the in 1800 MHz, 2.3 GHz and 2.5GHz bands. (As an aside, the 2.5GHz band from 2500 MHz to 2690MHz is also described as the 2.6 … Read more

The wheels of European legislation have slowly turned, and last week Europe adopted a five-year radio spectrum policy programme, at Parliament’s second reading under the co-decision procedure. Readers will recall that last summer two key issues remained outstanding between the Council of Ministers and Parliament – the date by which the 800 MHz band should … Read more

I have been experiencing an interesting shift in the way that I advise clients on risk as part of my move from Europe to Asia. Almost a week after the Indian Supreme Court revoked 122 mobile licences on the grounds that their award was “totally arbitrary and unconstitutional”, which led to share price drops for some foreign … Read more

Last week Ofcom published its conclusions from its earlier consultation on simplifying spectrum trading by introducing spectrum leasing. The concept is best explained through a couple of pictures from the Ofcom statement: Existing spectrum trading: New spectrum leasing: The pictures demonstrate how the new proposals will simplify the spectrum market in the UK. Leasing will initially … Read more

Ofcom today issued revised guidelines on the penalties they may impose on those breaching rules policed by Ofcom. The new guidelines replace prior guidelines dating from 2003 and apply to a rag-bag of over 40 potential contraventions, although significantly not competition law. In a departure from Ofcom’s default ‘if in doubt write a long document’ … Read more